(Re)imagining the Indian (Inter)national economy

New Political Economy

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 163-179

  Wyatt, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GLOBALIZATION; IMAGERY; NATION STATE; POLITICAL ECONOMY;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; INDIA; SOUTH ASIA; WORLD;

EID: 22544446758     PISSN: 13563467     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13563460500144728     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Angus Cameron & Ronen Palan, The Imagined Economies of Globalization (Sage, 2004), p. 14.
2. The career of the Hindi term swadeshi (literally meaning 'belonging to one's own country') spanned the twentieth century. The nationalist leader Gandhi was only the most well known interpreter of swadeshi. See Judith Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 89-90. The term has enjoyed a variety of meanings when used by supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the last decade. Hardline nationalists prefer a strict interpretation of the swadeshi idea. After the BJP came to power in 1998 individuals sympathetic to the economic policy adopted by the coalition government between 1998 and 2004 used the term in a much softer sense.
3. Satish Deshpande, 'Imagined Economies: Styles of Nation-building in Twentieth Century India', Journal of Arts and Ideas, Nos. 25-6 (1993), p. 7.
4. George Crane, 'Imagining the Economic Nation: Globalisation in China', New Political Economy, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1999), p. 215.
5. Deshpande, 'Imagined Economies', p. 26.
6. This argument was restated in 2003 when a revised version of the article was published in Satish Deshpande, Contemporary India: A Sociological View (Viking, 2003), p. 72.
7. Cameron & Palan, The Imagined Economies of Globalization, p. 8.
8. Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (University of California Press, 2002), pp. 81-2.
9. Cameron & Palan, The Imagined Economies of Globalization, p. 18.
10. Mitchell, Rule of Experts, pp. 84-104.
11. I acknowledge the importance of language in framing possibilities and motivating action. However, equally I am aware of the limits of elite discursive strategies and the diffusion of power in determining what is considered to be true. Thus I am not suggesting that the Indian economy is straightforwardly 'produced' in the language and rhetoric employed by elite figures in Indian society. An alternative argument that assigns colonial representations and practices a central place in the creation of India in the late 19th century is outlined in Mann Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
12. Neither am I suggesting that the study of India's place in the global economy need go no further than the issues of representation. Stuart Corbridge responds to the alleged postmodern obsession with definitional issues and argues for a sustained interest in the material dimension of poverty in his review article, 'Beneath the Pavement only Soil: The Poverty of Postdevelopment', Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 34, No. 6 (1998), p. 141.
13. The language and the narratives used to represent an imagined economy are not assumed to be neutral. The depictions of India's imagined economies outlined here are profoundly ideological. They are narratives that make partial selections of historical evidence and privilege or silence certain voices. These narratives variously align with, or contradict, the interests of particular groups in Indian society and outside of it. In short, I draw on some insights from the literature on discursive constructions of economic 'reality' without advocating the strong anti-foundationalist position taken by some writers who treat this aspect of political economy. I have taken this position because, while I consider discourses to be influential, they are not as determining as is sometimes suggested. For example, the significance of the imagined economies discussed here varies over time. The discursive turn is useful for understanding the impact of ideology and rhetoric, but the focus on language can draw attention away from other questions in political economy.
14. Deshpande, 'Imagined Economies', p. 13.
15. Crane, 'Imagining the Economic Nation', p. 216. Emphasis in the original.
16. James Scott observed this process among the poor villagers of 'Sedaka' and comments: 'assessing the present forcibly involves a reevaluation of what has gone before. Thus, the ideological struggle to define the present is a struggle to define the past as well.... They have collectively created a remembered village and a remembered economy that serve as an effective ideological backdrop against which to deplore the present.' See James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press, 1985), p. 178. Emphasis in original.
17. Cameron & Palan, The Imagined Economies of Globalization, pp. 70-4.
18. Ibid. pp. 46-51.
19. Crane, 'Imagining die Economic Nation', pp. 222-4.
20. Deshpande, 'Imagined Economies', p. 26.
21. Crane, 'Imagining the Economic Nation', p. 218.
22. Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 102.
23. This explains why, to the incredulity of some professional economists, a narrative of India's imagined economy can proceed without detailed references to notable figures, such as P.C. Mahalanobis, who contributed so much to the early five year plans.
24. Jutta Weldes, 'High politics and low data: globalization discourses and popular culture', in: D. Yanow & P. Schwartz-Shea (Eds), Interpretive Research Methods: The 'Interpretive Turn' and Empirical Analysis (M.E. Sharpe, forthcoming 2005).
25. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 22.
26. Rob Jenkins, 'The ideologically embedded market: political legitimation and economic reform in India', in: M. Bevir & F. Trentmann (eds), Markets in Historical Context: Ideas and Politics in the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 204. Emphasis in original.
27. Joseph Whitmeyer, 'Mann's Theory of Power - A Sympathetic Critique', British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1997), p. 222.
28. Ronald Inden, 'Embodying God: From Imperial Progress to National Progress in India', Economy and Society, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1995), p. 265.
29. Albert Hirschman, Development Projects Observed (Brookings Institution, 1995), pp. 30-4.
30. Daniel Klingensmith, 'Building India's "Modern Temples": Indians and Americans in the Damodar Valley Corporation, 1945-60', in: R. Sivaramakrishnan & A. Agrawal (eds), Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India (Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 122-42.
31. A detailed treatment of swadeshi-based economic nationalism articulated during the nationalist struggle is given in Lisa Trivedi, 'Visually Mapping the "Nation": Swadeshi Politics in Nationalist India, 1920-1930', Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 62, No. 1 (2003), pp. 11-41. The post-independence period has been given good coverage in the work by Ronald Inden and Satish Deshpande cited above.
32. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (Verso, 1991), pp. 42-5. I am grateful to Katharine Adeney and Vernon Hewitt for pressing me on this point.
33. Weldes, 'High politics and low data'.
34. Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s is an interesting medium to observe because of its plebeian orientation. As well as the need for commercial success, which inclined the industry to a mass audience, at the time of independence cinema was considered vulgar by the Western-oriented upper middle class, who tended to ignore it. See Meghnad Desai, Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar in the Life of India (Roli Books, 2004), pp. 9 & 23. Recently, the orientation of contemporary Hindi films has been inverted. Films are increasingly being made for wealthy consumers in selected urban areas and audiences among the Indian diaspora.
35. See Sudhanva Deshpande, 'Hindi Films: The Rise of the Consumable Hero', Himal. August 2001, available at http://www.himalmag.com/ august2001/essay.html
36. I have selected the book, India Unbound, because it reflects a mood shared among many of the Indian middle class. The book condenses attitudes and opinions widely expressed (though more diffusely) in the English language media. In private conversation one advertising executive assured me that reading this book would enable me properly to understand Indian politics. A bookseller in the southern Indian city of Chennai reported to me that several hundred copies of the book were purchased for distribution among managers of the Ford car plant south of the city. Another reader commented to me that she 'especially liked what [Das] mentioned about Nehru's Soviet obsession and Indira's not opening the economy ... in the 60s'. Gurcharan Das, India Unbound (Viking, 2000).
37. Guha, Dominance without Hegemony, pp. 103-4.
38. Bipan Chandra, Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India: Economic Policies of Indian National Leadership, 1880-1905 (People's Publishing House, 1966), p. 4.
39. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 63.
40. Ibid., p. 49.
41. Ibid., p. 56.
42. Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology (Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 77.
43. Baldev Raj Nayar, Globalisation and Nationalism: The Changing Balance in India's Economic Policy, 1950-2000 (Sage, 2001), pp. 50-1.
44. The system of five year plans has been widely criticised, but at a minimum it represented an attempt to promote cohesive national development. The Planning Commission is now a much-diminished institution. In recent years it has been used as a place of exile for out-of-favour officials.
45. Government of India, First Five Year Plan: A Draft Outline (Planning Commission, 1951), p. 3.
46. B.R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 172.
47. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, p. 214.
48. Harry Johnson, 'A Theoretical Model of Economic Nationalism in New and Developing States', Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 2 (1965), p. 183.
49. A.K. Roy, 'Closure of Sindri Fertilisers: A Political Decision', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 10 (2003), p. 934.
50. Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers 1947-1964, Volume 3, 1952-1954 (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 251.
51. Tania Roy & Craig Borowiak, 'Against Ecofeminism: Agrarian Populism and the Splintered Subject in Rural India', Alternatives, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2003), p. 62.
52. Das uses the example of J.R.D. Tata's relations with Nehru and Indira Gandhi to illustrate his view of the supposed hostility of the Indian state to the private sector. Das, India Unbound, pp. 182-5.
53. However, this view is not universally shared, as seen in this alternative judgement: 'The economy in the Nehruvian period of planning became locked into socially inefficient but privately profitable capitalist development'. See Stuart Corbridge & John Harriss, Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy (Polity, 2000), p. 62.
54. Vishnu Saksena, India's Freedom Struggle through India Postage Stamps (Department of Posts, 2000), p. 198.
55. Nasreen Kabir, Bollywood: The Indian Cinema Story (Macmillan, 2001), pp. 64-6.
56. Rachel Dwyer & Divia Patel, Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 64.
57. Charan Singh, India's Poverty and its Solution (Asia Publishing House, 1964), pp. vi, x-xi.
58. I am grateful to M.S.S. Pandian for drawing this point to my attention.
59. Corbridge & Harriss, Reinventing India, pp. 29-31.
60. Rob Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
61. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh Vision 2020, n.d., available at http://www.aponline.gov.in/quick%20links/vision2020/ vision2020.html
62. Thomas Blom Hansen, 'The ethics of Hindutva and the spirit of capitalism', in: T. Blom Hansen & C. Jaffrelot (eds), The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 306.
63. The term 'globalisation' picked up negative connotations in India quite quickly. I have yet to find the term used by a Congress politician before 1996, suggesting that Congress was reluctant to associate its reforms with the process of globalisation.
64. 'PM lists five priorities to tackle poverty', The Hindu, 19 December 1999.
65. 'Balance "brick economy & click economy": PM', The Hindu, 5 July 2000.
66. Government of India, Report of the Committee on India Vision 2020 (Planning Commission, 2002), p. 8.
67. The document acknowledges the similar vision documents produced by state governments and the book India 2020 co-authored by Abdul Kalam, erstwhile government scientist and current President of India. Kalam claims that the correct application of technology is essential for the Indian economy to be developed by 2020. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, with Yagnaswami Rajan, India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium (Viking, 1998), p. 6.
68. Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime Minister's Address on Independence Day, 15 August 2003, Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi.
69. Lal Krishan Advani, 'Globalisation on the solid foundation of Swadeshi', lecture to the 71st annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, 25 October 1998, available at http:// www.rediff.com/business/1998/nov/02spl.htm
70. Advani, 'Globalisation on the solid foundation of Swadeshi'. http://www.rediff.com/business/1998/nov/02spl.htm
71. It is not clear that the wider electorate intended to punish the government for running an advertising campaign that identified too closely with the interests of metropolitan India. A more persuasive explanation would be couched in terms of electoral alliances and the reputation of regional parties in the BJP coalition. However, it is a convenient narrative for the two main national parties. The BJP could blame its defeat on a short-term lapse of presentational judgement. The now incumbent Congress Party was able to claim that it received a mandate from the poor and 'forgotten' rural India.
72. For further evidence of how this attitude is more generally expressed by many among the Indian middle class, and often with a Hindu nationalist inflection, see John Harriss, India: The Bitter Fruits of Grandiose Ambition, DESTIN Working Paper Series (03-45), London School of Economics, 2003, p. 7.
73. Das, India Unbound, p. 272.
74. Ibid., pp. 260-1.
75. Ibid., p. 240.
76. Ibid., p. 294.
77. Desai, Nehru's Hero, pp. 64-7.
78. The film Lagaan, released in 2001, was a notable exception to the general trend in Hindi cinema. It was popular, religiously inclusive and featured peasant heroes. See Deshpande, 'Hindi Films'. http://www.himalmag.com/august2001/essay.html
79. Walter Andersen & Shridhar Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (Sage, 1987), pp. 129-30.
80. Dattopant Thengadi, WTO and the Agreement on Agriculture: The Indian Perspective Expert Views (Swadeshi Jagran Prakashan, 2000).
81. During an interview in New Delhi in February 2001 one senior journalist referred dismissively to the SJM as a 'ginger group' whose leading members were 'intellectually weak'. On a separate occasion another senior journalist ridiculed at length the swadeshi ideas of the minister of human resources, Murli Manohar Joshi.
82. This mission statement and other details of the foundation's activities can be found at http://www.ibef.org/
83. 'A campaign that lost sheen', The Hindu, 3 October 2004, available at http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/10/03/stories/2004100300160200.htm
84. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister's Independence Day Address, 15 August 2004, Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi, available at http:// pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=11
85. I am grateful to Rob Jenkins for suggesting this line of argument.
86. Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers 1947-1964, Volume 3, pp. 251-2.
87. Barbara Harriss-White, India Working: Essays on Society and Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 43.